I don't think there is any conspiracy by the organization to tank. As pointed out by other posters, it's hard to imagine a group of professionals not trying to win in a coordinated effort to win a higher draft pick.

I'm one of those guys who is actively rooting for the Pistons to lose games right now.
It's not because I'm cynical, or hate the team, or even that I'm impatient. It's because I fully expect to watch 50 to 60 Pistons games a year, and as a fan, I would rather the organization take it's lumps now, and greatly improve it's chances of picking up quality talent for the future... a future that will be here in 9 months.

Play Macklin, play Daye, play Knight 35+ minutes a game. To me, the opportunity to watch Monroe and Davis together for the next 4 years is much more exciting than beating the past-their-prime Celtics a few times in February.

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The problem is...how do you say to some guys in the lockerroom- you're better but we must tank, take it easy, you can even skip practices and to "macklin-daye" group "play your ass off, you must win dammit!"

The problem is...how do you say to some guys in the lockerroom- you're better but we must tank, take it easy, you can even skip practices and to "macklin-daye" group "play your ass off, you must win dammit!"

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Oh, I totally agree. You can't ask the players to tank. And I don't think you can ask any decent coach to tank. I do think you can spend more time on development of young talent if you don't need to win every game. Look at the win totals under Larry and under Flip. Larry lost some games getting those guys to "play the right way."

Also, keep in mind that at least one of the players on the team is going to get directly replaced by the new draft pick. Pretty tough to get Maxiell to tank so that we can draft some PF who is taller than 6'5".

Are you talking about small ball?
IMO that was the result of a weak minded coach trying to make his GM and his players happy at the same time. Let's not Judge anything that Coach Tablecloth did with any validity. That was just a bad hire.

That all of course may be too simplistic because to understand what a player / organization member should do he or she must first clearly define the real goal of playing – is it to win games or to win championships? Is it to win championships or to make money? And are we willing to use the tactic of losing in order to ultimately win sometime in the future?

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And within what you wrote, trying to apply universals to any group of individuals is going to get pretty tricky.

There are no two people on the Pistons who are playing for the same goals, for exactly the same reasons. Each of them is an individual.

Because the players are functioning in a hierarchical structure however, they do get direction from the top, ownership => Joe => Coach Frank => Players.

It's pretty hard not to see the two Kuester years as less than tanking by the org. in my opinion. Irregardless of the intentions and ambitions of the players, they weren't put in a position to win by the coach, who was deliberately chosen (and supported) by the GM.

Not enough has been said about the nightmare of the post-Bill Davidson transition. Continuity in the event of owner/shareholder death is usually pretty clean business in modern corporate America. Leaving the Pistons in Karen's hands was a very bad move by Bill.

I don't think anyone enjoys watching bad play. Even the people who feel like it is a means to an end.

It comes back to some people willing to accept short term bad play (or compromise of values/honor) in return long term excellence. Or as Ralphi put it, a time preference.

@Ralphi, I was too tired last night to make sense of it, but what you're talking about is game theory. The NBA has two zero sum games going on at once. Only one team can win the title, and everyone else is a loser. And only one team can get the top draft pick, and the rest are all losers. Because accomplishing one requires the opposite effect of the other (unless you get a #1 pick via trade), only made inexact by the lottery process, the incentive closer to winning the title is to go all in with big payroll and so forth, and closer to the #1 pick, is to tank games.

Pretty interesting how stupid that whole system is. This bizarre notion of subsidizing losers with a better pick is not how nature works. Nature punishes failure, but in essence, the NBA rewards the biggest winner and the biggest loser (by record) creating an idiotic set of incentives. The champ should get the first pick, or it should be completely random.

The NBA has two zero sum games going on at once. Only one team can win the title, and everyone else is a loser. And only one team can get the top draft pick, and the rest are all losers. Because accomplishing one requires the opposite effect of the other (unless you get a #1 pick via trade), only made inexact by the lottery process, the incentive closer to winning the title is to go all in with big payroll and so forth, and closer to the #1 pick, is to tank games.

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There is also the other non zero sum game going in parallel, which is to make money. A team can with the Championship and lose money or they can fail in the ECF for many years straight and make money. Some owners play this game and some are willing to lose it because they get intangible rewards for stoking their ego or getting political/ public brownie points, which maybe helps them in their other business ventures.

Losing for several years straight and then bursting to a Championship level for a year or two and then collapsing again might not produce the most overall profits (Florida Marlins model- not sure how they do financially). Winning a ship and then milking it for several competitive years afterward like the modern day Pistons may be close to ideal. Many ways to play this part of the game.

Do I want players to earn there time.... Thus meaning the Coach has the respect of his players and confidence that he's doing everything to win every game.... YES

Do I want the GM to give the players and coaches the tools to win every game.... YES, but without a total sell out for today at the cost of tommorrow... expect if its a championship push.

What I am ok with is if the GM makes trades at the trade deadline that will weaken the team short term but strengthen the team long term, and if the coach plays youth at the end of the bench the last week of the season to see what you have.

With the Piston's roster/contract situation in its' current state; I (as a Pistons fan) want to see the team play for the future. I want to see them place a higher priority on player/roster development than 2012 regular season wins. -If this happens to result in additional victories? - awesome!

The worst kind of team that you can have in the NBA is a veteran team that sucks.
If you have a young team that sucks, at least you still have hope for the future.

I've seen enough of Tay, Ben Wallace, Will Bynum, Ben Gordon, Stuckey, Charlie and J-Max to know that these guys are NOT the way forward. Any and all roster moves should be made with the intent of replacing these players with younger/better ones.

(Stuckey has managed to string together some good games recently. If he keeps up this pace, I'll remove him from this list.)

I've seen enough of Tay, Ben Wallace, Will Bynum, Ben Gordon, Stuckey, Charlie and J-Max to know that these guys are NOT the way forward. Any and all roster moves should be made with the intent of replacing these players with younger/better ones.

With the Piston's roster/contract situation in its' current state; I (as a Pistons fan) want to see the team play for the future. I want to see them place a higher priority on player/roster development than 2012 regular season wins. -If this happens to result in additional victories? - awesome!

The worst kind of team that you can have in the NBA is a veteran team that sucks.
If you have a young team that sucks, at least you still have hope for the future.

I've seen enough of Tay, Ben Wallace, Will Bynum, Ben Gordon, Stuckey, Charlie and J-Max to know that these guys are NOT the way forward. Any and all roster moves should be made with the intent of replacing these players with younger/better ones.

(Stuckey has managed to string together some good games recently. If he keeps up this pace, I'll remove him from this list.)

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Agreed, except I'm ok with Big Ben as I want him to retire a Piston as well . I will never complain when it's the young players who are leading the way when we win, aka Greg, Brandon and JJ, as that means they're playing well and are capable of leading a team to victory, especially the former two. On Stuck, I'll wait and see if he can keep playing well until the end of the season. He just relies so much on free throws.

To be clear I don't think any team has deliberately told their coach to lose games. ( Anyone ever hear of this? ) Its too risky. I would imagine the penalty would be along the lines of what the T-wolves got for tampering in the Joe Smith case back in 1999. They lost draft picks for 5 years. Can you imagine no draft picks at all for 5 years straight?

Teams tank by not playing their best squad and even faking injuries to ensure that the best product is not on the floor. But the guys that are on the floor are trying their best to win. That's actually what I though the Pistons were doing when all these mysterious injuries surfaced and guys were missing games for "personal reasons" . That's what the Spurs did back in 1998 when Glenn Robinson was sidelined with some odd injury that no one could figure out. It worked, they got the 1st pick and used it on Tim Duncan.

Nah, he's the type that would probably help not hinder the Taynk Machine.

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You know the irony in bringing up CV. If CV hadn't got hot in the last few games of 10 then we would not have dropped to a tie with Philly and we could have been the team to draw the #2 pick. As it turns out both Turner and Favors ( who we would have prod picked ) are not nearly as good as Monroe turned out to be at this stage in their careers. So not tanking actually got us the better player.

You know the irony in bringing up CV. If CV hadn't got hot in the last few games of 10 then we would not have dropped to a tie with Philly and we could have been the team to draw the #2 pick. As it turns out both Turner and Favors ( who we would have prod picked ) are not nearly as good as Monroe turned out to be at this stage in their careers. So not tanking actually got us the better player.

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Yep. Not really a fan of CV's game so I rag on him often, but I agree with that. Pistons got lucky by being perceived to be unlucky slipping down the order to 7.

To be clear I don't think any team has deliberately told their coach to lose games. ( Anyone ever hear of this? ) Its too risky. I would imagine the penalty would be along the lines of what the T-wolves got for tampering in the Joe Smith case back in 1999. They lost draft picks for 5 years. Can you imagine no draft picks at all for 5 years straight?

Teams tank by not playing their best squad and even faking injuries to ensure that the best product is not on the floor. But the guys that are on the floor are trying their best to win. That's actually what I though the Pistons were doing when all these mysterious injuries surfaced and guys were missing games for "personal reasons" . That's what the Spurs did back in 1998 when Glenn Robinson was sidelined with some odd injury that no one could figure out. It worked, they got the 1st pick and used it on Tim Duncan.

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Haha, I remember that season - it was not only Glenn Robinson, but all the others (including the Admiral) as well; it was as if the Spurs team was on vacation. So obvious. I mean, the back-then around 100 years old Dominique who had played in Italy before to come back for a bit of NBA action was their leading scorer in that season!
Anyhow, about tanking; I was at no point suggesting to tell the players to lose on purpose. It's about faking injuries and giving young players burn and let them make their mistakes. Let Macklin and Daye play; trade players like Stuckey for possible picks or cheap players. Get rid of the assets that may have value right now but hinder the long-term development. In other words - find a long-term strategy, even if it's for the cost of one or two season. Better 2,3 bad seasons than not having any perspective at all.

Yes, I absolutely do. I didn't mean to incinuate that I want to trade/release him. He's done after the season and there's no way that Joe would use him as a throw-in to ship him out of Detroit at this point. This is a case where I would be totally on-board with Joe being loyal to a former Piston champion.

The ideal scenario would be for Joe to somehow trade one of the other players that I mentioned for a young PF/C that Ben could mentor for the remainder of the season.

You know the irony in bringing up CV. If CV hadn't got hot in the last few games of 10 then we would not have dropped to a tie with Philly and we could have been the team to draw the #2 pick. As it turns out both Turner and Favors ( who we would have prod picked ) are not nearly as good as Monroe turned out to be at this stage in their careers. So not tanking actually got us the better player.

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Dumars is so crafty that he would have drafted Turner and then immediately traded him for Monroe + cash. Then he would have gone after Lin.